A Busy Mother's Spiritual Problems
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Dear friend,
It is a joy to me to know that it was an article of mine which led you into serious living. The deepest and purest joy given to anyone in this world, is the consciousness that we have been a real help to others in their lives. I hope that I may be still more help to you — a sort of pastor-friend to answer your questions and to try to make some things a little plainer to you. You must not be afraid to bring me any perplexities or difficulties — it will always be a pleasure to try to help you with any of them.
Instead of answering your several questions in detail, perhaps I can reply to them better in a general way. The difference between human friendship and friendship with Christ, is the absence of the actual human touch which we have with human friends whom we know personally, and which we can never have with Christ. But really, this is not of so much importance as one might think. A little child whom the mother had been trying to soothe when she said she did not want to go to sleep alone with her doll Happy, by telling her she had Happy and that Christ was with her, too, said, "I don't want Happy and I don't want Christ — I want somebody with a skin face."
The child realized the difference of which I am speaking. To her the human touch was important. It is important to older people, too. There are times when a human touch means everything to us. It is a comfort to me that one of Christ's ways of helping, is through human lives, the human presence, the human touch and voice. I sometimes say to my people that the only body Christ has now in this world, is that of his followers. That is, Christ reaches people through you and through I. We are to be his hands — to be his touch of comfort. We are to be his heart-to give out sympathy and tenderness to all who are in need.
You speak of what I said about feeling. I think I referred to your own expression, your desire to have more feeling in your relations with Christ. What you say is true, that when Christ's presence becomes a reality to us — we do have feeling. Faith comes first — believing in the presence of Christ; then comes feeling, joy, the thrill of gladness. Many people at the Communion Table, for example, or in the raptures of their devotions, feel their whole life thrill with the love of Christ. In this case, his presence is quite as real as it was to Mary as she sat at his feet, or to John, when he lay upon the Master's bosom.
All you say about feeling, therefore, is perfectly true. I have read your letter through carefully, and I am very sure that your experience with Christ is very deep. He is as actual a friendto you as your husband, as any other friend could be. I thank you for what you have written. It has done me good to read your letter. What you say about the presence of Christ, about friendship with him, about the joy which you experience in the assurance of his love for you, is most comforting indeed.
I would like to say a word about your questions, in the closing pages of your letter. Let me say, first, that all our life, if we love Christ and are trying to follow him — is part of our Christian life: all of our work is work for Christ. You give me a sweet picture of your home life — a young mother with two little children at her knee. Your most important duty — even more important than church-going — is your duty of motherhood. God has given you these dear little ones, that you may be to them everything that you can be. John Tabb writes:
The baby has no skies
But mother's eyes;
Nor any God above,
But mother's love.
You ask whether you ought not to be teaching Sunday school or working in Christian Endeavour , or doing other things for Christ. Never think for a moment, that you are not doing Christian work while you are bringing up your children, living a sweet, beautiful life before them, pouring your love into their lives, mothering them, even though you have time for no work outside your home.
An old minister wrote in his ninetieth year something like this — "God came to me first in my mother. He could not have come to me in any other way to bless me — so he put his love and tenderness and purity and grace and sweetness into my mother — and she revealed it to me. After a while, I began to know God in other ways, learning to trust him and to lean upon him. Now in my old age, my mother has gone, but God remains; and what my mother was to me in my infancy — God is to me in my old age."
What I want you to see in these words is that the only way God has of manifesting himself to your children, is through you. The Jewish rabbis used to say that "God could not be everywhere, so he made mothers. "
I need not say another word in answer to your difficulty about not working for Christ. I would not say that you ought not to do anything else, but care for children. If you have time, it would be very beautiful for you to do other things. A young mother I know very well, with two children, one five and one very young, has been for several years one of the most efficient teachers of the little children in the kindergarten of our Sunday school. But she is a mother first, and then because she thought she had the time, and being, besides, a trained kindergartner teacher, she found the opportunity to do the will of Christ for other children as well as her own.
But this is a matter which you must settle for yourself. Besides being a mother, you are a wife. You are God's messenger to your husband. I do not mean that you are to preach to him or give him all sorts of advice. As a rule, this is not the best way of doing good to a husband. But you can do a great deal for him by thoughtfulness and kindness. What I want to help you to understand is that you are to be to your husband an interpreter of Christ, of his patience, his holiness, his peace, his helpfulness, his serving.
Then you speak about your outside life. Of course you must have amusements. A life with all work and no play — gets very dull. You need every day a little recreation, something to take you away from your serious moods. You speak of watching a baseball game, and not saying a word about Christ, or even thinking about him. That is all right. It is impossible for us always to think of anyone. I do not believe that you literally think about your husband all the time, or your children. We cannot have two things in our mind at once. But we can be true to Christ and can show his love in our lives, in whatever we are doing. That is what I meant by having Christ always in our thoughts, not only when we are praying — but when we are at our work or in recreations and amusements.
Then, as for speaking to people about Christ, that has to be done very wisely. Very likely, to have spoken directly of Christ to anyone you saw at the baseball game — would have done more harm than good. There is a time for all things. Your duty, it seems to me, is that you should live Christ always. You represent Christ wherever you go. You are one of his interpreters. Even at the game you were preaching Christ — by your happiness, your peace of heart, your gentleness, thoughtfulness, kindness. You are always to preach by yourexample. Now and then, whenever opportunity occurs, you are to speak a word for him.
You say we are required to go out into the world, and to draw all men to Christ. Christ said to himself, "I, if I be lifted up . . . will draw all men unto me." He meant that by his great act of love, in giving his life for the world, he would so reveal the heart of God as to draw all men to himself. He wants us to go out and tell men about his redeeming love. By our influence in the world we are to commend Christ. It is said of a devoted Christian minister that everywhere he went, he made people fall in love with Jesus Christ. He did it not only by what he said — but even more by the beautiful influence of his life. People saw Christ in him, in the way he lived, in the love he showed to everyone — and they learned to love Christ in him.
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